Street Sign Quotes & Sayings

When F. W. Woolworth opened his first store, a merchant on the
same street tried to fight the new competition. He hung out a big
sign: "Doing business in this same spot for over fifty years." The
next day Woolworth also put out a sign. It read: "Established a
week ago: no old stock. — Peter Hay

Consider guilt like a street sign that warns of rough roads ahead if you don't make a u-turn. — Richelle E. Goodrich

The street signs", she replied simply. I simply felt stupid. "When you learn how to read, you can read Stop, Go, and the colors matter too!"
"Yeah?", (sigh).
"Yup! That leaf is green, it means Go. The yellow like the bus means careful. The red is Stop. Oh and there's crossing guards. And if you fall anyway you don't have to worry."
"Really? Why not?"
"Because you can always get up. And see?" she showed me her scar once more, "It hurts at first, but then it heals. — Yaritza Garcia

The greatest religion gives suffering to nobody," reads a weather-beaten sign, quoting the Buddha, at Chele La pass, the highest motorable point in the country, near Paro. This maxim is everywhere evident. As a Bhutanese friend and I walked in the mountains one afternoon, he reflexively removed insects from the path and gently placed them in the verge, out of harm's way. Early one morning in Thimphu, I saw a group of young schoolboys, in their spotless white-sleeved ghos, crouching over a mouse on the street, gently offering it food. In Bhutan, the horses that trudge up the steep trail to the Tiger's Nest monastery are reserved for out-of-shape tourists; Bhutanese don't consider horses beasts of burden and prefer not to make them suffer under heavy loads. Even harvesting honey is considered a sign of disrespect for the industrious bees; my young guide, Kezang, admonished me for buying a bottle of Bhutanese honey to take home. (Chastened, I left it there.) In — Madeline Drexler

Personally, if I were trying to discourage people from smoking, my sign would be a little different. In fact, I might even go too far in the opposite direction. My sign would say something like, "Smoke if you wish. But if you do, be prepared for the following series of events: First, we will confiscate your cigarette and extinguish it somewhere on the surface of your skin. We will then run you nicotine-stained fingers through a paper shredder and throw them into the street, where wild dogs will swallow them and then regurgitate them into the sewers, so that infected rats can further soil them before they're flushed out to sea with the rest of the city's filth. After such time, we will sysematically seek out your friends and loved one and destroy their lives."
Wouldn't you like to see a sign like that? — George Carlin

I painted the Astor-Victoria sign seven times, and it's 395 feet wide and 58 feet high. I dropped a gallon of purple paint on Seventh Avenue and 47th Street from 15 stories up and didn't kill anybody. I dropped a brush at Columbus Circle. It fell on a guy's camel-hair coat. — James Rosenquist

Apocalypse Hal was on the corner by the Laundromat. Hal was a neighborhood street preacher who worked at the fish and crab place next door. He wore a sandwich board sign of Bible verses and shouted angry things at passersby like "The end times are near" and "Seafood sampler $5.99." Now his sign just read "TOLD YOU SO," and he looked more anxious than angry. — Adam Rex

Across from the famous jewelry store on Fifth Avenue at Fifty-Seventh Street, we sat in the back of a graffiti-covered white box truck watching the world go by on the surveillance vehicle's hidden high-def camera. So far there had been no sign of the thieves. Or even Audrey Hepburn. — James Patterson

We have feudal governments in a commercial age. It would be but an easy extension of our commercial system, to pay a private emperor a fee for services, as we pay an architect, an engineer, or a lawyer. If any man has talent for righting wrong, for administering difficult affairs, for counselling poor farmers how to turn their estates to good husbandry, for combining a hundred private enterprises to a general benefit, let him in the county- town, or in Court-street, put up his sign-board, Mr. Smith, Governor, Mr. Johnson, Working king. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Do you care about your image?' Even as the words were coming out of my mouth, I was mentally kicking myself. He'd been kidding around, and meanwhile I sounded like an afternoon special. But he didn't seem to mind.
'Sure. It's my armor.'
'Your what?' The WALK sign flashed, and he put a hand on my elbow as we crossed the street. And yes, even that faint pressure on that small spot made my entire arm tingle.
'My armor. You know. Self-protective camouflage. Everybody has an armor. Even you, I bet, even though I still haven't figured out what form yours takes. — Jennifer Sturman

Wednesday. March 16 Isn't it strange that it hasn't occurred to me to put my relationship with Clarimonda on a more serious basis than these endless games. Last night, I thought about this...I can, of course, put on my hat and coat, walk down two flights of stairs, take five steps across the street and mount two flights to her door which is marked with a small sign that says "Clarimonda." Clarimonda what? I don't know. Something. Then I can knock and...

Up to this point I imagine everything very clearly, but I cannot see what should happen next. I know that the door opens. But then I stand before it, looking into a dark void. Clarimonda doesn't come. Nothing comes. Nothing is there, only the black, impenetrable dark.

"The Spider — Hanns Heinz Ewers

Here's the pitch. Mantle swings. There's a tremendous drive going into deep left field! It's going, going! It's over the bleachers ... over the sign atop the bleachers ... into the yards of houses across the street! It's got to be one of the longest runs I've ever seen! How about that! — Mel Allen

The street in the center of town was Butts road. I stole the sign and told the audience, this must be where the assholes live. I also had a Neighborhood Crime Watch - it takes about 20 seconds to break into a house but it took me an hour to unbolt this sign. — Carrot Top

You make a right on L, make a left on O, come to a green light and that's when you can go. You keep straight on V, until you come to E, that's when you see a big sign that say's welcome to Love Street. — R. Kelly

My conversational difficulties highlight a problem Aspergians face every day. A person with an obvious disability - for example, someone in a wheelchair - is treated compassionately because his handicap is obvious. No one turns to a guy in a wheelchair and says, "Quick! Let's run across the street!" And when he can't run across the street, no one says, "What's his problem?" They offer to help him across the street. With me, though, there is no external sign that I am conversationally handicapped. So folks hear some conversational misstep and say, "What an arrogant jerk!" I look forward to the day when my handicap will afford me the same respect accorded to a guy in a wheelchair. And if the respect comes with a preferred parking space, I won't turn it down. — John Elder Robison

I'll never get tired of looking at her. Or kissing her. Pussy whipped, thy name is Drew. Yeah I know. It's okay. I don't mind. 'Caue if this is the Dark Side? Sign me up. Seriously. Don't be surprised if I start skipping down the street singing, "Zip-a-Dee-fucking-Doo-Dah." I'm that happy. — Emma Chase

Little by little, studying the infinite possibilities of a loss of memory, he realized that the day might come when things would be recognized by their inscriptions but that no one would remember their use ... At the beginning of the road into the swamp they put up a sign that said "Macondo" and another larger one on the main street that said "God exists". — Gabriel Garcia Marquez

I cannot live without brainwork. What else is there to live for? Stand at the window here. Was ever such a dreary, dismal, unprofitable world? See how the yellow fog swirls down the street and drifts across the duncoloured houses. What could be more hopelessly prosaic and material? — Arthur Conan Doyle

But it was true. I was constantly surprised how the storied names of biblical locales popped up in the most familiar of circumstances: on a simple map, on a graffitied street sign, or in everyday conversations. "The traffic to Bethlehem was terrible last night!" said a Jesuit over dinner one night. Which still didn't beat "Gehenna is lovely. — James Martin

Why do we judge Jesus' criterion for authentic discipleship irrelevant? Jesus said the world is going to recognize you as His by only one sign: the way you are with one another on the street every day. — Brennan Manning

There it was, a sign above a shop that said 221B BAKER STREET. My mouth hung open. I looked around at the ordinary street and the white-painted buildings, looking clean in the morning rain. Where were the fog, the streetlights, the gray atmosphere? The horses pulling carriages, bringing troubled clients to Watson and Holmes? I had to admit I had been impressed with Big Ben and all, but for a kid who had devoured the adventures of Sherlock Holmes, this was really something. I was on Baker Street, driving by the rooms of Holmes and Watson! I sort of wished it were all in black and white and gray, like in the movies. — James R. Benn

The city is tricky. The highs are so much higher, but in the lows you drop straight down again to bedrock. It helps that streets are snapped to a grid. There are also psychic boutiques and sidewalk prophets, but until you contrive your own love story set in that city, even one as warped as mine, you remain outside it, looking for signals in the white smoke that rises from under, in the sudden hot laundry smells and the LED typos of street vendors donuteasily becomes dount, ominously like don't, to my mind. There was a DOUNT sign on Second Avenue which more than once redirected my superstitious footsteps. — Olivia Sudjic

Large portraits of Mao on wooden boards several feet high stood at main street corners. Painted to make the old man look extremely youthful, healthy, and fat (a sign of well-being in China), these pictures provided a mocking contrast to the thin, pale-faced pedestrians walking listlessly below them. Pg. 193 — Nien Cheng

Street sign: Ho Hum Road & Easy Street In retirement, I look for days off from my days off. — Mason Cooley

Do you know when you cross against traffic? You look down the street and see a car coming, but you know you can get across before it gets to you. So even though there's a DON'T WALK sign, you cross anyway. And there's always a split second when you turn and see that car coming, and you know that if you don't continue moving, it will all be over. That's how I feel a lot of the time. I know I'll make it across. I always make it across. But the car is always there, and I always stop to watch it coming. — David Levithan

The Berg flew past them, over street after empty street. And then there was a small building with double doors hanging wide open. A hand-painted sign said PFC PERSONNEL ONLY. A few people were lined up to go inside. They seemed calm and collected. Mark hated them for it and had a fleeting moment where he itched to find the Transvice to start firing away. "That's ... it," Alec muttered. And Mark knew what he meant. If there really was a Flat Trans device, it would be there. The few people entering the building had to be the last of the PFC workers, fleeing the East once and for all. Leaving it to be claimed by madness — James Dashner

I don't really think of myself as an inspirational person.
Instead, I tend to think of myself as being more like one of those guys standing on a busy street corner, twirling a a big pointed arrow.
Except that my sign points toward Heaven. — Jose N. Harris

The smallest decisions made had such profound repercussions. One ten-minute wait could save a life ... Or end it ... One wrong turn down the right street or one seemingly unimportant conversation, and everything was changed. It wasn't right that each lifetime was defined, ruined, ended, and made by such seemingly innocuous details. A major life-threatening event should come with a flashing warning sign that either said ABANDON ALL HOPE or SAFETY AHEAD. It was the cruelest joke of all that no one could see the most vicious curves until they were over the edge, falling into the abyss below. — Sherrilyn Kenyon

A street full of electric light is a sign of civic failure and is an insulting injury to the soul. Shutting out the night is as disastrous as shutting out the light. — Michael Leunig

I'm a blowfish. I'm not a shark, I'm a blowfish. So that perfect example about me hitting my head [he walked into a street sign and it was caught by paparazzi], it's like a blowfish. I wasn't coming out of my house going to a paparazzi's house to attack them. I'm defending my family in front of my own house. I'm defending my name as someone's screaming something negative at me. That's a blowfish. People have me pinned as a shark or a predator in some way, and in no way am I that. I wouldn't want to hurt anyone. I want to defend people. I want to help people. — Kanye West

If someone walked along any high street anywhere in London, and probably anywhere in the country, and looked into a letting agency, they would see a sign saying, 'No benefits here.' In other words, anyone in receipt of a state benefit is not allowed to apply for a private rented flat from that agent. — Jeremy Corbyn

I can't find a street sign, but I know I ran fast and I ran far and I didn't pay attention to anything. I broke every rule that I have and I've gotten what I deserve for it. It's the middle of the night and I am alone and lost and drenched in darkness. — Katja Millay

A scattering of pinpoint lights shows up in the blackness ahead. A town or village straddling the highway. The indicator on the speedometer begins to lose ground. The man glances in his mirror at the girl, a little anxiously as if this oncoming town were some kind of test to be met.
An illuminated road sign flashes by:
CAUTION!
MAIN STREET AHEAD - SLOW UP
The man nods grimly, as if agreeing with that first word. But not in the way it is meant.
The lights grow bigger, spread out on either side. Street lights peer out here and there among the trees. The highway suddenly sprouts a plank sidewalk on each side of it. Dark store-windows glide by.
With an instinctive gesture, the man dims his lights from blinding platinum to just a pale wash. A lunch-room window drifts by. ("Jane Brown's Body") — Cornell Woolrich

If I walk on the street, if I go to a restaurant, people come to me and say: "Can we take a photo together? Can you give me your autograph?" They would bring their expensive Armani or Prada wallet to sign. Other people who are desperate show me a photo of their dead daughter and ask: Can you support me? I tell them: How can I? Morally, of course, I sympathize with you. But I cannot support you and you cannot support me. This is the condition of this society. We are separated. — Ai Weiwei

I stopped at a stop sign at the end of the street, and Margo said, "What the hell? Go go go go go," and I said, "Oh, right," because I had forgotten that I was throwing caution to the wind and everything. — John Green

The train was parked fifty feet up, by a toy station that mimicked the one across the street. Hanging from its eaves was a sign which read TOPEKA. The train was Charlie the Choo-Choo, cowcatcher and all; a 402 Big Boy Steam Locomotive. — Stephen King

Prophets of doom have always taken risks in terms of ridicule and humiliation. If you stand on a street corner holding up a sign that reads 'The End Is Near,' passersby will laugh and heckle. People will say you're like Chicken Little, running around telling people the sky is falling. — Robert Kiyosaki

There was a time when I could walk down the street, Hollywood Boulevard or Beverly Drive, and somebody would come up to you and they would say, "Excuse me," and you'd barely hear them, and you'd turn around and you'd say, "Yeah, how you doing?" and they'd say, "I'm really sorry to bother you, but my aunt is a big fan of yours, and would you mind terribly if you'd just sign this paper," or whatever it is, and you're happy to do that, and the people are pretty nice about it. — Billy Bob Thornton

It's obvious that a lot of Tea Party members tend to be elderly. You've seen that famous sign, 'Tell the government to keep its hands off my Medicare.' And I think as long as the government does keep its hands off their Medicare, they're fine with talking about low taxes. But once they start to realize that the Republicans really do want to not just cut Medicare, but essentially abolish it, you know, I just think those people are not going to be part of the Tea Party. They're going to be over with Occupy Wall Street. — Bruce Bartlett

Anna followed, keeping a sharp eye out for things he might back into or over. She wondered if Isaac did this all the time-and, if so, how he avoided getting photos in the paper with captions like "Local Alpha Trips Over Child" or "Wolf Versus Street Sign, Street Sign Wins. — Patricia Briggs

Sometimes people will come up in the street and say: 'My daughter loves you, will you sign an autograph for her?' And some people send me stuff. I don't mind it at all: as a sportswoman, you owe them because they support you. — Zara Phillips

It was on the corner of the street that he noticed the first sign of something peculiar - a cat reading a map. — J.K. Rowling

In the late 1600s the finest instruments originated from three rural families whose workshops were side by side in the Italian village of Cremona. First were the Amatis, and outside their shop hung a sign: "The best violins in all Italy." Not to be outdone, their next-door neighbors, the family Guarnerius, hung a bolder sign proclaiming: "The Best Violins In All The World!" At the end of the street was the workshop of Anton Stradivarius, and on its front door was a simple notice which read: "The best violins on the block." — Freda Bright

Twenty miles on, we have spotted a roadside sign: 'CHAINSAW CARVED MUSHROOMS'. Troubles promptly forgotten, Stuart falls to gawping at the road ahead. What could it all be about? 'As one victim to another,' his body language seems to marvel, 'What's a mushroom done to deserve that kind of abuse?' Not even in the worst days of street-fighting did he ever experience ill-treatment on this scale. — Alexander Masters

Setting her jaw, Whitney turned left. "This is a one-way street." He looked around helplessly. "Didn't you see the sign?" "I know it's a one-way street," she muttered and pressed harder on the gas. "It's also the quickest way across town." "Oh, Jesus. — Nora Roberts

The time to talk about it [genetic engineering to improve a baby's genes] in schools and churches and magazines and debate societies is now. If you wait, five years from now the gene doctor will be hanging out the MAKE A SMARTER BABY sign down the street. — Arthur Caplan

The view from the apartment's one window was of another building's gray ferroconcrete wall, which was intermittently lit by the white neon flicker from the Ringer Hut noodle shop sign across the street. As — Karl Taro Greenfeld

I live in the area where the Hollywood sign is. Every afternoon, I'll take a daily walk, and there are loads of tourists always on the street taking photos of the Hollywood sign. Occasionally, I'll still get recognized as 'Gunther,' which is okay with me. — James Michael Tyler

Many people have a stereotype of what it means to be poor. And it may be somebody they see on the street corner with a sign: "Will work for food." And what they don't think about is that person who's struggling every day. Could be the person who waited on us, took our bank deposit, works in retail, but who is barely above the poverty line. — Robert D. Putnam

Above the street, like a hanged man, swings the spot-lit sign of the neighborhood's best restaurant, closed a long time ago. — Roberto Bolano

I didn't recognize the name on the street sign. Nothing about the rural road looked familiar or friendly. Tall, imposing trees and overgrown weeds choked the front of the dilapidated home. Windows were boarded up. There was a gaping hole where the front door had been. I shivered, wanting to be far away from here ... wherever here was. — Jennifer L. Armentrout

I was the greenest rookie that ever was. One evening I was standing out on the sidewalk when a stranger approached and said, 'You're famous already kid. See, they've named a hotel for you.' I looked across the street and sure enough, there was a big illuminated sign that read 'Johnson Hotel.' Well, do you know that I was so green that I actually believed the man! — Walter Johnson

[On Jerry Falwell] No, and I think it's a pity there isn't a hell for him to go to ... The empty life of this ugly little charlatan proves only one thing: that you can get away with the most extraordinary offenses to morality and to truth in this country if you'll just get yourself called Reverend. Who would, even at your network, have invited on such a little toad to tell us that the attacks of September 11th were the result of our sinfulness and were God's punishment if they hadn't got some kind of clerical qualification. People like that should be out in the street, shouting and hollering with a cardboard sign and selling pencils from a cup. — Christopher Hitchens

Kill myself? Killing myself is the last thing I'd ever do. Now I have a purpose, a reason to live. I don't care who I have to face, I don't care who I have to fight, I will not rest until this street gets a stop sign! — Dan Castellaneta

The stage, the screen, the novel, casual conversation, the street discussion, and too often the fireside intimacies are punctuated with blasphemy, to which may be added, as of the same nature, coarse, ribald jokes, foul stories, and low small talk. Some would have us believe that profanity is a sign of masculinity and emotion maturity. — Ezra Taft Benson

But some things are the same. My mother still owns the house I grew up in, on what would now be called a cul de sac, but which the sign on the corner called a dead end street. — Mink Stole

Of course I can read", he said. "Jesus Christ."
"Well, then, what are you trying to tell me? That you don't want to?"
"No. I-" He closed his eyes and took a deep breath through his nose.
"-I don't know why I'm trying to tell you anything. I can read. I just can't read book."
"So pretend it's a really long street sign and muddle through it. — Rainbow Rowell

JAMES HALE sat at a side-street noodle-stall. The stall was set-up underneath the shade of a row of fruit trees. He watched a pair of pigeons courting beneath a fig tree. The male's tail feathers were pushed up in self-promotion and his plumage was arrogantly puffed up. He danced his elaborate dance of love. The female didn't look impressed. She turned her back to him. Birds were like gangster rappers, Hale thought. They sang songs about how tough they were and how many other birds they'd nested. They were egomaniacs with inferiority complexes. Posers in a leafy street. The bastards flew at the first sign of danger. They couldn't make it on the ground. Hale hated birds with their merry chirps and their flimsy nests. Tweet. Tweet. Fucking. Tweet. The only thing Hale admired about them was the fact that they could fly. That would be cool. Right now, flying would be good. — James A. Newman

And despite the eyeliner, and the lipstick that defines her lips, she has a face now that a passerby's gaze will engage and then bounce from, as it would a street sign or a mailbox number. ...this is what aging is... — Khaled Hosseini

One ancient retired Air Force nurse does nothing but screams 'Help!' for hours at a time from a second-story window. Not six weeks ago, a huge stole HELP WANTED sign was found attached right below the retired shrieking nurse's window.
Unit #5, kittycorner across the little street from Ennet House, is for catatonics and various vegetablish, fetal-positioned mental patients. It is, understandably, a pretty quiet place. But in nice weather, when its more portable inmates are carried out and placed in the front lawn to take the air, standing there propped-up and staring, they present a tableau it took Gately some time to get used to. A couple newer residents got discharged late in Gately's treatment for tossing firecrackers into the crowd of catatonics on the lawn to see if they could get them to jump around or display affect. — David Foster Wallace

The only sign of war was a cloud of dust migrating from east to west. It looked through the windows, trying to find a way inside, and as it simultaneously thickened and spread, it turned the trail of humans into apparitions. There were no people on the street anymore. They were rumors carrying bags. — Markus Zusak

Valkyrie Cain got out of the passenger side. She zipped up
her black jacket against the cold, and joined Skulduggery as he
walked up to the front door. She glanced at him, and saw that he was smiling.
"Stop doing that," she sighed.
"Stop doing what?" Skulduggery responded in that gloriously velvet voice of his.
"Stop smiling. The person we want to talk to lives in the only dark house on a bright street. That's not a good sign."
"I didn't realise I was smiling," he said.
They stopped at the door, and Skulduggery made a concerted effort to shift his features. His mouth twitched
downwards. "Am I smiling now?"
"No."
"Excellent," he said, and the smile immediately sprang back up. — Derek Landy

I find letters from God dropt in the street, and every one is sign'd by God's name ... — Walt Whitman

St Mary Magdalene church was on the left-hand side of the road, set back behind a low brick wall, well-trimmed topiary and a narrow fringe of grass studded with lichen-covered gravestones from a hundred years ago. A sign had been tied to the railings: two capital As set inside a blue triangle that was itself set within a blue circle. An arrow pointed towards the church. Milton felt a disconcerting moment of doubt and paused by the gate to adjust the lace of his shoe. He looked up and down the street, satisfying himself that he was not observed. He knew the consequences for being seen in a place like this would be draconian and swift; suspension would be immediate, the termination of his employment would follow soon after, and there was the likelihood of prosecution. He was ready to leave the service, but on his own terms and not like that. — Mark Dawson

One of the fine moments in 1940s film is no longer than a blink: Bogart, as he crosses the street from one bookstore to another, looks up at a sign. — Manny Farber